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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Convert PDF to DWG

I was looking at some options to convert PDF files to AutoCAD formats like DWG and DXF and here is the result using the free online service www.convertpdftoautocad.com. www.pdftodxf.com from the same company should work if you want the result in DXF format but the PDF files I tried did not work (according to the company due to a temporary glitch). As with all online services you need to consider if you can trust to use them or not, no matter if the privacy policy says it should be 100% safe.

This shows part of the PDF I uploaded as a test.

And here is the resulting DWG file that you get a download link to in an email. Some of the text is correctly converted while some other text could not be converted. Geometries seems to convert quite fine even though the result is not circles or whatever objects you started with but instead mostly polylines and some hatch objects. The text comes in on layer T, polylines on layer P and hatches on layer H.

Other methods are to use Adobe Acrobat (depending on version) may have the copy graphics tool to copy the graphics to the clipboard. Adobe Illustrator that can save a PDF in DWG or DXF format. The free Ghostscript & GSView can export PDF to DXF. There are also specific products to purchase for this specific functionality.

Note that if you have raster PDF files instead of linework PDF files you may not be able to convert them. Some text might be linework and will also be converted to lines instead of text.

Finally there might not be a need to convert the PDF. Attaching it as a reference in AutoCAD might even be the best choice.